I'm so angry at myself. I was doing great, lost a lot of weight, gained confidence and it felt sooo good, but I had to go ruin everything
I moved in with a bunch of friends and I stopped exercising, started partying and eating crap. I have no excuse, I need control back. I started drinking alot of water and I'm trying to keep my diet clean.
I need some motivation! How to get back on track? How do you do it?

In my case, I have to decide why I want to lose weight and use that as my motivation. Then I can ask myself, what is more important, being able to keep up with my friends when we go for a walk or having that dessert? Fitting into my new clothes or lying on the couch instead of going for a run? What is motivating you to want to lose? Once you are really clear on that, I think you can draw on that for motivation. Good luck!

I just stepped on the scale this past Monday since Aug 2009. I'd lost so much weight and was awesome. I got injured and had a year of horrible stress on every aspect of life. I know I've been losing and I thought I was pounds away from my panultimate goal 135. Well, Monday confirmed my doctor's "broken" scale that I weighed 163. Wow, I felt suddenly like I actually gained that weight in a few moments. I felt so bad. By the end of the day, I was determined to commit to very strict planning. I've been good for four days.

I agree with JessLess that finding your personal motivating theme or goal will be the most successful tool to get on then stay on track. For me, I want a healthy BMI because almost everyone in my family has had cancer and many have died from it. It's really my reason but it works to keep me pushing to lose 27 pounds.

I've joined a couple threads here on 3fc that really motivate me (for instance 100% 100 days or 100 pushup challenge). They keep me coming back to 3fc so I don't feel so alone in my weight loss.

Good luck. As I said here on 3fc the other day after learning the shocking weight, "the truth shall set you free". It'll be alright. Take care.

But I had everything figured out. I had surgery in 2009 and I changed my life around. Became super healthy and started exercising. Didn't lose alot because of my hormones and medicine I have to take but I felt great anyways. In late 2010 I really started to get 'skiny'. I guess after a year of mostly vegetables, wholegrains and fruit my body gave in. But I had to go and ruin everything. I've been telling myself it's not that bad for the last 6 months but I know I've gained everything back. Why do I do this to myself? It was the one thing I really wanted and I sabotaged it.. What is wrong with me..

Were you always waiting to go off plan? Were you dieting just to get to goal? Did something about your progress freak you out? Was it sheer complacency? There's a reason somewhere.

BTW Things aren't ruined. You're still here and you're still capable of achieving whatever you want to manifest into your life.

This time it was really different. Or so I thought. I also didn't gain everything back quickly, like in my yo yo dieting years before my surgery. I just kind of didn't care as much anymore after I realized this was actually working for me. I never planed my meals, I didn't count calories, I ate whenever I was hungry, until I was full and sometimes that was a lot. I was on a mostly carb diet, vegetables and fruit first, whole wheat pasta, brown rice and whole grains second, nuts, tofu, soy, a bit of cheese every now and then. I really like my food that way. It was tasty and no problem for me at all. But I stopped exercising and started eating just pasta, too much cheese on everything, drinks every other night, salty snacks, pizzas.. Then sudenly I started craving ice cream and chocolate when I had PMS. And it kind of got out of control. I figured out that if my diet is clean I can eat a bag of air-popped pop corn and satisfy my cravings, but if my diet is crap I crave sweet and salty crap food and make everything even worse. I guess I thought I would never have to worry about my weight again.
Went for a run today. Felt good. Back on veggies and whole grains (I know a lot of you go for low carb but I really really really don't like meat and eggs, I think everyone should find their own healthy lifestyle, and low carb is just plain suffering for me and therefore a total failure in succesful weight control)
Anyways. I would really like to know the cause of this sub-concious self-sabotage.. Or am I really just lazy? I'm a perfectionist in every other aspect of my life. Why is this so different then?

"But I stopped exercising and..."

This is how all my gains have started.

Good luck getting back on track!!!

Yeah, you said straight that you stopped exercising. Someone posted about this the other day that they ate badly when they stopped exercising. The only thing I can figure is that your natural endorphins from exercise drop off and your body slides back into sort of a funk and starts looking for something to make it feel perky again, so the next best endorphin booster is food. Just a theory but if you can connect the dots to lack of exercise, exercise might be your best tool.

Normally, I'd look at your diet and talk about insulin response and bouncing your blood sugar around but if you know you can lose weight with that higher carb method, I'll leave it alone except to say that if there isn't enough protein in a person's diet to balance out the carbs, they usually have intense carb cravings. But exercise can balance your carbs to some degree so I think that this is another reason your cravings increase when you stop exercising.

I hear ya. My exercising dropped off quite a bit a few months ago. I just weighed myself the other day and was 129. I didn't change that on my ticker, though, because I had eaten breakfast already and I normally weigh on an empty stomach. It doesn't seem like much...but on a small frame, ick. I force myself to weigh in because it doesn't help motivate me if I have no idea where I'm at. Thankfully, I always estimate that I'll be more than what I weigh, so the scale makes me feel a little better.

So today I got on the scale.. I gained 13 lbs.. I'm really dissappointed. I hate being like this I look very...unhealthy.

I also got on the scale today to see a very disappointing number. I am so sick of yo-yo dieting and gaining and losing the same 10 lbs or so. It is disgusting and so disheartening!

All you need is a week to just kill it! I mean eat great, exercise, you will see a lot of that weight just fall off. you can exercise right? I'm not sure if you mentioned something about that... we are here for you!